Voting Resources

Getting that message out to the voters - it’s going to begin soon! The wonderful advertising round of the Presidential 2008 election season underway. Already, the major candidates have each blessed us with a “Holiday wishes” ad spot. It was brief, sweet, and to the point, and not shown too often, so that viewers don’t spend the Holidays resenting the candidates, but with a definite air of “we’ll be right back to pound you with the heavy advertising on January 2nd!” So, here’s what kinds of hustling they’re run on you, and its relative effectiveness.

Read the rest of this entry »

The United States is not a Democracy? What an outrageous claim to make! Or so it would seem…

In fact, the United States of America is actually a Republic. The other terms bandied about amongst political scientists are “Representative Democracy” and “Constitutional Republic”. And this isn’t just a dictionary-zealot splitting hairs here; there are very important distinctions between a pure Democracy and what we have in the USA. And confusing the issue can actually lead to gross mistakes.

Read the rest of this entry »

No matter which candidate you support, it’s easy to see that for elections to be truly fair and inclusive, the more eligible voters who cast their ballots the better. Finding ways to increase voter turnout isn’t just a job for politicians and government officials, though. There’s a lot the average person can do to help encourage their fellow citizens to vote.

Read the rest of this entry »

United States Presidential candidates for 2008 have a growing factor to address: the increased usage of the Internet. Fully half the people on Earth are going online now, and the United States is one of the most wired countries in the world.

Read the rest of this entry »

When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990’s bringing the Cold War to an end, there was a lot of celebrating and flag-waving. But some very sensible throats in the back gave a nervous gulp. Because the inevitable aftermath of this was that the United States was left as the only standing Superpower. And with great power comes great responsibility… and a target pinned to your back.

Read the rest of this entry »

The ground shook in the year 2000, as the cries of outrage rang across the United States. “What do you MEAN the popular vote didn’t win!?!?!” One could hardly blame the citizens for being shocked; the last time this happened was in 1888! The Electoral College vote had over-ridden the popular vote. George Bush was going into office… by the grace of just five electoral votes, despite having gotten 543,816 fewer popular votes than Al Gore. Even some of the people who voted for Bush were mad… because no matter who won, it was obvious that something was awry.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hilary Clinton was boldly running for President in 2008, and the thought may seem unusual, since we’ve never had a woman President. We have, however, had a President election with a woman on the ballot before - 13 elections, in fact! Here’s a look at some of the more notable cases of this phenomena, and why Clinton may just have had a chance.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the United States, the two-party system has been so all-encompassing of American politics as to nearly obliterate all traces of an option. Recent criticism has been directed at how the two parties are actually the same one, with words like “Republocrat” and “Demican” used as derogatory names for the two main parties. However, the system has been on the edge of accepting the Libertarian party into the mainstream. It has teetered tantalizingly close, without going all the way, and it has done so for a long time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bone up on your political jargon with this handy list of political phrases and expressions. While there are many of these, this list may be especially relevant to Presidential Election 2008, so keep an eye out for spotting these concepts as the race unfolds in all its drama!

• Lame duck - This is an elected official who is soon losing political power and is no longer feeling very responsible for his or her actions. Typical lame duck maneuvers are to pull off a string of moves just before leaving, which they never would have done if they had to worry about getting elected again. What will George Bush pull out of his sleeve this December?
• Read the rest of this entry »

This year’s Presidential election presents a wide spectrum of religious faith amongst the candidates. This year more than ever, it begs the question: What role, if any, should religion play in the policies of the Federal government?

The American people seem to lean towards the side of preferring religious candidates. After all, there’s no point in trying to pretend that ours is a secular government; our pledge says “under God”, our money says “In God we trust”, and our Presidents frequently make references to prayer. While we seem to be nervous about sliding into a theocracy, and prefer our leaders not to have too strong an agenda towards a particular denomination, we still seem to want some general amount of religious belief in our Chief Commander.

Read the rest of this entry »